You are here

College Counseling

Students who attend a private school experience many advantages including superb facilities, focus on personal development, dedication to advanced academic programming, and access to highly qualified teachers. After thirty years in private, secondary education, I have found the size of classrooms are perhaps the greatest advantage to high school students and their college application success. As a professional college counselor, I observe that students in smaller schools receive more effective instruction, but more importantly, educators get to know their students better. At Adelson Campus, our students thrive in this environment gaining confidence, appling for more leadership roles, and becoming better prepared, not just for college, but for their careers and their lives as citizens in our world.

As the college counselor at Adelson Campus, I have dedicated my time to getting to know each and every student and their goals for the next level. Smaller class sizes increase the time and resources we are able to dedicate to standardized testing preparation, the college application process, and researching and obtaining potential scholarship opportunities. Another benefit of a smaller, private school community is that the more intimate size leads to a stronger collegial environment. Perhaps the best example of this is the tremendous assistance I receive from our English instructors, who annually allow seniors to submit college application essays in fulfillment of the year’s first writing assignment. Additionally, a majority of our English instructors also volunteer to assist during a workshop devoted entirely to proof-reading application essays.

When a university requests letters of recommendation, our instructors regularly comment upon, in addition to a student’s performance in their class, a student’s special interests and/or talents, extra-curricular involvement, engagement in the community, and the student as a “whole person.” The same holds true for the college counselor, who is writing thirty to forty letters per year in comparison to the hundreds of students for whom a public school counselor, and even some private school counselors, must represent.

Given our numbers, I am able to proof-read each and every application before it is submitted, and I can further find confidence in the fact I know every essay has endured several edits from multiple, qualified readers

While it is difficult to compare results from one year to the next, as each senior class is unique, we can quantify results for our most recent graduating class, the Class of 2017. The forty members of the Class of 2017 submitted 241 applications and achieved an acceptance rate of just over 80%, receiving offers of admission to 68 different colleges and universities in four countries.

Twenty-eight seniors were offered merit awards/scholarships from these institutions, totaling over $1,100,000. Additionally, members of the class earned several corporate scholarships, such as the Prudential Spirit of Community Award, the Ronald McDonald House Charities Award, and the National Merit Scholarship, raising total awards for the class to over $1,400,000.

These impressive results are a reflection of the strength of the Class of 2017, as well as the quality of instruction at the Adelson Educational Campus. However, I know that, in my capacity as College Counselor, I was able to introduce our seniors to a greater number of college and scholarship opportunities, and was better able to manage the application process due to the relatively small number of seniors in the class.